This Observed Life – PS4, Button Visibility

Description

One big experience that my roommates and I have gone through includes my PS4 and how its buttons are designed. On the front, there are two buttons that are activated through touch. One button is for power and the other is to eject the current disc in the PS4. The problem is, the logos for power and eject are not visible or in any way distinguishable unless you get extremely close to them. We always accidentally eject when we want to power off and vice versa.

Presentation

Very hard to see buttons

Design Process

Activities

playing a PS4 game

turning the console on and off

putting the console into rest mode

Environments:

living rooms and bedrooms across the country

anywhere a PS4 is used to play games

Interactions

competing against online players

competing against players next to you

watching video streaming applications

play solo games

Objects:

1+ players

PS4

The controllers

Users:

The players who use the PS4

Anyone who uses the PS4 and needs to turn it off/eject a disc

Proposed Intervention

The PS4 already has one big light on it that is lit up when it is on but the two buttons for power and eject are not. My proposed intervention is simple. It would just involve extending the light downwards to include the 2 buttons when lighting up. If the two buttons were lit up, a user would be able to distinguish which button is which and would avoid pressing the wrong one.

Reflection

The main challenge of designing for yourself is bias. You don’t take into account others experiences as much as your own. When coming up with the idea for an intervention I thought to myself what would make it easier for me. It wasn’t until this part of the assignment where I thought, what would make it easier for everyone else. Some might have wanted to use physical raised representations for the buttons instead of the lights. Others could have better ideas than just lights.